Journalist suspect in Irish murder loses libel actions

Monday 19 January 2004 22.01 EST
First published on Monday 19 January 2004 22.01 EST

The mystery surrounding Ireland's greatest unsolved murder deepened last night when a journalist who reported on the killing of a French film producer only to become the prime suspect failed in a number of libel actions to clear his name.

Ian Bailey, 46, was the first reporter on the scene when Sophie Toscan du Plantier was found bludgeoned to death on the driveway to her holiday home in Schull, west Cork, just before Christmas 1996. She had been attacked with a hatchet and a concrete block.

The murder sparked fear among celebrities with holiday homes along the fashionable "West Cork Riviera".

Bailey sold stories to French and British newspapers, but later he was arrested on suspicion of murder. He was questioned twice but not charged; nor was anyone else.

Bailey, an English poet and sometime journalist who had been living in west Cork for several years, gave a series of media interviews in the wake of his arrests, but last month he sued seven British and Irish newspapers for libel, saying their "prejudiced and slanted" reports had ruined his life.

He said he was now known as "the murderer". He had been ostracised and could not get work.

The reports had alleged that he had been seen washing his wellington boots in a nearby stream on the morning the body was found. It was also said that he had scratches on his face at the time of the murder and had been seen burning his clothes, which he said were covered in turkey blood. It was alleged he had a history of violence towards women, including towards his ex-wife.

The two-week libel hearing gripped Ireland and France as three locals told the court that Bailey had admitted the murder to them. One couple said he told them: "I did it. I did it ... I went too far". Bailey said he had been joking.

A local shopkeeper said she had seen Bailey near the crime scene on the morning the body was found and that he had intimidated her. Details emerged from the writer's diaries of brutal attacks that he had inflicted on his current partner, a Welsh landscape artist, who had required hospital treatment.

Neighbours described Bailey as a Bohemian character who went walking at night with his "thinking stick".

At Cork circuit court, Judge Patrick Moran yesterday concluded that five newspapers - the Star, the Daily Telegraph, the Independent on Sunday, the Times and the Sunday Independent - were justified in their reports. He said the articles did not convey that Bailey was the murderer, only that he was a suspect, and they included his assertion that he was innocent.

But the judge ruled that the Mirror and the Sun had defamed him by reporting that he had beaten his ex-wife, the journalist Sarah Limbrick, during a violent marriage.

He said that Bailey was an "exceptionally" violent man, who had beaten his current partner, but allegations about his earlier marriage could not be substantiated. The papers were each ordered to pay £2,800.

Judge Moran said Bailey had courted publicity after his arrest. "This to me was quite unusual. Normally somebody who is arrested on suspicion of the serious charge of murder withdraws very much into the background following their release from custody...

"One can assume that Bailey was a man who likes a certain amount of notoriety, likes to be in the limelight and likes a bit of self-publicity."

The judge said that Bailey was exceptional in his cool demeanour in the witness box but there had been inconsistencies in his evidence.

The journalist, who faces substantial legal costs, refused to comment as he left court.

Lawyers for Toscan du Plantier's parents and her son have launched a civil case in the high court in Dublin, claiming damages against Bailey for unlawful killing.